Listen to narration by a local historian

The Rochester Club

Jeff Ludwig

Historical Researcher, City of Rochester

For over a century the Rochester Club represented the pinnacle of social and financial achievement in this city. The fashionable and exclusive social club, seen here around the turn of the 20th century at its location on the corner of East Avenue and Swan Street, provided an opulent downtown retreat for many prominent citizens.

Established in 1860 by Rochester’s leading industrialists, club founders intended to create a space where they could escape “the toil and moil of the marketplace.” Not only was the Rochester Club the first of its kind in the city, but, adding to its luster, members claimed to belong to “the oldest such organization west of the Hudson.”

After three false starts with different headquarters locations, the Rochester Club settled permanently at the East Avenue site in 1888. Formerly the residence of Rochester Mayor A. Carter Wilder, the original three-story clubhouse was described by a Democrat & Chronicle account as an “old-fashioned house with [an] ornate iron fence and shade trees.”

As Rochester prospered during the early 20th century, so too did the clubhouse on East and Swan. To accommodate its ballooning membership rolls, Rochester Club facilities underwent major renovations in 1911. The new design included such luxuries as a grand ballroom lit by four crystal chandeliers, an expanded billiards room, and even subterranean bowling lanes. In addition, the club boasted three bars, four dining rooms, a restaurant, sauna, gym, library, gaming lounge and barber shop.

The Rochester Club was a restrictive institution in multiple ways. At its peak, in fact, upwards of several hundred Rochesterians were relegated to a membership waiting list and placed in limbo. Moreover, until late in the organization’s history, women were excluded altogether. The gentlemen-only club limited women to very specific functions, like balls, or to designated places, like the art deco style ladies’ lounge— the only room which women were traditionally permitted to under ordinary circumstances.

A popular lunch haunt for Rochester’s elite businessmen and politicians, the club was also famous for hosting lavish dinner parties and an annual Governor’s Ball. On such gala evenings, according to a former club maître d’: “Cars were parked by valets. Cocktails and canapés would be followed by beef Wellington or pheasant under glass at tables skirting the ballroom floor.” Guests and members literally walked on red carpet while “white-gloved waiters brought drinks on silver trays.”

The decadence did not last, however. By the late 1970s, faced with dwindling numbers and the changing economic fortune of the city, the Rochester Club reached a crisis point. Membership flagged from a high of 1,500 in the 1950s to just a few hundred people two decades later. “It happened so slowly we didn’t catch on to it,” one club employee lamented in 1979.

Worse, perhaps, than the decline of social club culture, at the end of 1970s the Rochester Club found itself juggling $120,000 in back taxes and another $70,000 in yearly bills. Leadership disbanded the club in 1979; the clubhouse was sold to a lawyer for $200,000.

Walking by the old Rochester Club building in the East End today, one still senses its erstwhile glamor. Though several new businesses have co-opted and subdivided the former clubhouse space, much of its central elegance remains intact. Inside its walls, the grand ballroom has not only survived, but continues to be available for parties and enchanted evenings.